[...] conditioning people to be more complacent about government intrusion and restriction on their daily lives.
Is that *really* what you think is happening? I'm a Brit and haven't been to the US for a while now so may well be talking out of my 'bum'... but for that to be the case it suggests that someone, somewhere in the upper echelons of your government has taken an explicit decision that that is what they are trying to do.
I accept that the results make it feel more and more like a police state when you fly, but don't think the cause can be attributed to anything more than incompetence and laziness. As in: 'Hey, we need to make people feel more secure after a few hijackings. Screw it, we'll just hire a bunch of drop-outs in uniform to grope them every time they fly.'
The difference is important, because the way that you deal with an incompetent politician will probably be very different to the way that you deal with an 'evil' one, the latter being what I suspect you are alluding to. We may well be sleepwalking into a police state (the UK certainly has been over the past two decades) but my argument would be that the problem is the political apathy that allows it.
TL;DR: don't portray government as an evil genius when what's much more likely is a lazy idiot.
The most populous European countries have no national service: the UK's ended in 1960, France's in 2001, Germany's national service ended in 2011, and the Netherlands in 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service
These types of device admittedly aren't designed for lower spenders, but in the UK it's fairly common to have short or nonexistent contract periods, where data usage can incur quite hefty fees. On my 'pay-as-you-go' tariff the notional cost of data is £4/MB*, which would put something like this at £20 ($30) an HOUR... By comparison I could get a contract for a new HTC Wildfire for £15/mo.
Surely half the idea (of lower-end smartphones at least) is function creep: to try and get more limited users gradually using more and more data so both manufacturers and carriers win. Maybe this is a case of too much, too soon?
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* Of course, I would never use this for anything except -very- occasionally checking emails.
They have put out some quite revealing articles on tech issues in the public sector and with the current government in particular, for example ID cards, net neutrality and censorship, and the fate of Gary McKinnon, which have really been fascinating.
However, 'slightly dodgy' doesn't begin to describe some of their opinion pieces - the quality of some of them, particularly on environmental issues, is pure, fact-free nonsense. One recently attacked the industrial carbon-credits system citing its (admittedly major) limitations as reasons to abandon energy saving initiatives altogether. Would post link but it was a month or so ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Tin foil coat?
[...] conditioning people to be more complacent about government intrusion and restriction on their daily lives.
Is that *really* what you think is happening? I'm a Brit and haven't been to the US for a while now so may well be talking out of my 'bum' ... but for that to be the case it suggests that someone, somewhere in the upper echelons of your government has taken an explicit decision that that is what they are trying to do.
I accept that the results make it feel more and more like a police state when you fly, but don't think the cause can be attributed to anything more than incompetence and laziness. As in: 'Hey, we need to make people feel more secure after a few hijackings. Screw it, we'll just hire a bunch of drop-outs in uniform to grope them every time they fly.'
The difference is important, because the way that you deal with an incompetent politician will probably be very different to the way that you deal with an 'evil' one, the latter being what I suspect you are alluding to. We may well be sleepwalking into a police state (the UK certainly has been over the past two decades) but my argument would be that the problem is the political apathy that allows it.
TL;DR: don't portray government as an evil genius when what's much more likely is a lazy idiot.
The most populous European countries have no national service: the UK's ended in 1960, France's in 2001, Germany's national service ended in 2011, and the Netherlands in 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service
...I can attach it to some frikkin' sharks?
These types of device admittedly aren't designed for lower spenders, but in the UK it's fairly common to have short or nonexistent contract periods, where data usage can incur quite hefty fees. On my 'pay-as-you-go' tariff the notional cost of data is £4/MB*, which would put something like this at £20 ($30) an HOUR... By comparison I could get a contract for a new HTC Wildfire for £15/mo. Surely half the idea (of lower-end smartphones at least) is function creep: to try and get more limited users gradually using more and more data so both manufacturers and carriers win. Maybe this is a case of too much, too soon? - * Of course, I would never use this for anything except -very- occasionally checking emails.
and prints a LOT on a single cartage.
What do the Romans make of that?
They have put out some quite revealing articles on tech issues in the public sector and with the current government in particular, for example ID cards, net neutrality and censorship, and the fate of Gary McKinnon, which have really been fascinating.
However, 'slightly dodgy' doesn't begin to describe some of their opinion pieces - the quality of some of them, particularly on environmental issues, is pure, fact-free nonsense. One recently attacked the industrial carbon-credits system citing its (admittedly major) limitations as reasons to abandon energy saving initiatives altogether. Would post link but it was a month or so ago.
(Disclaimer: I am a Green Party voter)
Maybe that's what's happening here. ...or maybe that's what they *want* us to think.. ;)
Do they not have a sun where you live?
Well, this is Slashdot, and my parent's basement only has air vents...
Windmills do not work like that! Goodnight!